


Frigid and Searing

by Ruto



Category: Sengoku Basara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 13:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4306659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruto/pseuds/Ruto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the <a href="http://senbasajubilee.tumblr.com/">Sengoku BASARA Jubilee</a> on Tumblr.</p><p>In which Motonari is opinionated and experiences emotions differently from everyone else. Set mostly during Motonari's SB3 red route.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frigid and Searing

It was always said that Mouri Motonari did not possess a heart. His demeanor was too cool, too callous to suggest he was burdened with something so vulnerable and easily wounded. This was not true, strictly speaking. Within his chest there _was_ a heart, but it bore a frigid emptiness inside save for the space the sun took up. The ice held back the heated rays, and so Motonari held back whatever emotions might have otherwise threatened to escape from there.

No one doubted Motonari’s commitment to governing Aki and the overall Chugoku region, and this was as good a thing as it was somewhat frightening. Motonari’s mind was as sharp as the curved blades he wielded, his tactics as effective as they were devoid of compassion. The peace he maintained was paid for in blood. Chugoku was the eye of a hurricane; calm and still while everything around it was tearing the world to pieces.

Motonari was fine with that. After all, he was much the same.

His pawns were willing sacrifices. They accepted their role, and fell knowing that their deaths would ultimately benefit their home, their families and loved ones.

(Provided they did not fall for having earned Motonari’s ire first.)

Motonari felt nothing as he watched them die. He felt satisfaction when victorious and anger in the face of incompetence, but death, in and of itself, didn’t trouble him. His heart, frosty as it was, could not be moved by the plight of the dying.

This was merely their duty as pawns. 

Nothing more, nothing less.

It was inadvisable to become attached to pawns when death was their inevitable fate. Motonari did not become attached to anyone -- not enough to mourn them if they died, in any case. As people perished all around him, he stood tall yet reverent beneath the sun, its warmth the greatest happiness he had ever known.

Ally or foe, what were these people in comparison? Even if the rest of the country were to be razed to the ground, the sun over Chugoku would ever shine above him, an indelible fixture in an era of turbulence and uncertainty.

It was with this reassurance in mind that Mouri Motonari greeted the news of Tokugawa Ieyasu’s sudden rebellion, Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s death, and Ishida Mitsunari’s vow of vengeance, all of which he knew heralded the beginning of the end.

Eternal peace for Chugoku, warm and still, was now within his grasp, and glory unending for the Mouri Clan would surely grace him as the curtain fell.

☀

Otani and Ishida were both pitiful men to a certain degree; for all his painfully obvious lies (particularly his insistence that Motonari was his _good friend_ , probably said to placate Ishida), Otani was vastly the more tolerable member of the duo, and the only one he could converse with for more than thirty seconds without the level of general hostility amongst them proceeding to skyrocket into the atmosphere.

Ishida, resident source of all the hostility, was a downright mess, devoured by his hateful obsession with Tokugawa Ieyasu and chained to devotion towards a man who would never again walk the earth. This was the irrational ugliness of emotion in excess. Love was nothing to seek out. It was a poison, contaminating and befouling the minds of those who felt it.

(Though Ishida could not have been too terribly different before Toyotomi's death, Motonari believed.)

Motonari’s head, though swimming with schemes, was pure. He was _different._ He could cleanly cut either of these men loose -- particularly Ishida -- any time he wanted and feel nothing. No remorse, no regret. Nothing in his heart would ache the way Ishida’s did for his dead lord.

He could content himself with the knowledge he would forever have the sun until the world itself ended. 

Grief for another human being was incomprehensible to him.

As Otani plotted and worried altogether too much and Ishida raged like a mad dog, Motonari stood in the background, composed and dispassionate.

These pawns were, if nothing else, comfortably predictable.

☀

Kuroda Kanbe's ambitions were an absolute joke.

What did he think he could accomplish even if those shackles weren’t binding his hands? It was doubtful he could so much as plot his way out of a paper bag. 

Motonari found it worth recalling that it had been Ishida, of all people, who sniffed out Kuroda’s original intentions to overthrow Toyotomi, and Motonari could personally testify that it was not at all difficult to hide anything from Ishida.

But a remarkably stupid pawn was a pawn nonetheless, and he certainly had his uses.

Motonari could not say that Shikoku had not been sufficiently decimated when Kuroda was done with it.

He did not mind sending him back, either.

It was not Motonari’s problem that Kuroda’s regret was so great, yet his will so weak he would return to the scene of his crime and brutalize it once again.

☀

There could never have been any two people less alike than Mouri Motonari and Chousokabe Motochika. Motonari had always condemned the Sea Devil’s bleeding heart, and here now was the proof of the error of his ways. Had he been able to view his dead soldiers in the proper way (acceptable losses, easily replaced), he would not thrash and wail and curse Tokugawa Ieyasu’s name as he did.

(As if Tokugawa had anything to do with the massacring of his men.)

Perhaps if he were more like Motonari he would have seen just how false that flag was.

But he was not. He did not. He _could_ not. His stormy emotions were more blinding than his missing left eye, and from the very start Motonari knew this outcome was inevitable.

He looked upon Chousokabe Motochika and deemed him pathetic.

☀

The oracle Tsuruhime was a bubbly teenaged girl who had no business whatsoever at the helm of an army. Her heart was set on her “Twilight Ninja”, as she called him, and she evidently believed he would most certainly appear from the heavens to rescue her if the tides of battle turned in her enemy's favor.

(As they inevitably would, Motonari predicted.)

This girl was chasing a delusion and a fantasy. She could follow her gloaming savior wherever she wished. If she got in Motonari’s way, he would simply kill her. 

He wanted nothing to do with a pawn so sparkling and _giddy._

☀

It turned out that the fearsome and silent mercenary known as Fuuma Kotarou did, in fact, appear to be protecting Tsuruhime.

Shinobi had no business doing anything out of the kindness of their “hearts”. The very idea was absurd. Hearts were baggage they did not need, and as pawns, they were meant to act on their orders, not their feelings.

(He very much doubted Fuuma to have any semblance of a heart, much less feelings.)

The logical explanation for his behavior was that he had been covertly hired by someone from the Eastern Army to keep the Oracle safe. After all, her precognitive ability might be of use to a person with enough patience to tolerate the girl in possession of it.

Having come to that reasonable conclusion, Motonari gave the matter no further thought.

☀

Kingo was an incompetent little vexation; a coward and a glutton who needed to be reminded of his place -- which was beneath Motonari’s heel. Imbecilic nuisance though he was, he could not be allowed to turn tail and run into the welcoming arms of the Eastern Army. If his allegiances were to waver he would be more useful _dead_ , and Motonari would not have any qualms whatsoever with ending his worthless life if it came down to it.

“Tenkai” was a different matter altogether. Even a half-wit could see it was Akechi Mitsuhide staring from behind that paper-thin facade (which certainly said something about Kingo's degree of intelligence).

Motonari never liked that man either.

He was demented -- _revolting_ \-- and regardless of what he always liked to crow, Motonari was nothing like him. Not in the slightest.

Motonari redirected the disgust that bubbled up within him at Kingo, who made for a better target. Whatever “Tenkai” was planning, Motonari would not show him his throat.

He would not be graced with the sight of a rattled Mouri Motonari.

☀

Days passed.

Ishida could not have been more thirsty for blood if he'd tried to be. Motonari did not envy Tokugawa one bit. 

Otani finally found the decency to admit he had a different, _true_ motivation for his actions in this war. Motonari was not especially curious, but he supposed he would listen long enough to hear it all if Otani survived the battle. (He seemed eager enough to tell him regardless of whether or not Motonari cared to know.)

It was quite strange, the last encounter they had before the sun rose on Sekigahara. It was almost as if all that prattling on about what good friends they were had affected Otani’s head; like he had convinced himself it was true. His voice dropped to the same scratchy pitch he used when reminding a bloodied and worn Ishida that it would be all right to rest as he stated that he _respected_ Motonari.

And then the anomalous moment passed, and he went right back to sounding as unsubtle and insincere as he ever did, the kind of man only people as oblivious as Ishida or the Oracle could be fooled by.

For a brief moment, Motonari almost believed him.

☀

Motonari did not know where Ishida was or what had become of him.

Perhaps he was dead. 

It did not really matter, though it would explain how and why Tokugawa and Otani had come to blows with the vengeful wretch nowhere in sight. They were both wounded, Otani more-so than Tokugawa. It was not surprising. Regardless of how their technical skill in combat might compare (though Motonari would have guessed Tokugawa to be superior in this respect), Tokugawa was in considerably better health than his opponent, putting him at an automatic advantage. Even if Otani survived their fight, a cursory glance was enough to tell Motonari he would likely die by sunset.

It appeared Motonari would not be hearing his true motivations after all.

He could live with that.

Wheezing and defeated, Otani mustered the strength to ask something of Motonari; his dying wish, it appeared to be.

Motonari did not have to think very hard about his answer.

He denied him.

This, for some logic-defying reason, incensed Tokugawa. His sheer devotion to the concept of bonds lead him to take offense to the suggestion that Motonari ought to bring misery upon him. 

All this did was contribute to validating what Motonari had been thinking all along. Becoming attached to others lead to mystifying, self-destructive behavior. Becoming attached to others would bring you down with them.

Tokugawa, Ishida, Chousokabe, Otani --

Otani, what was _he_ thinking? Motonari had gone so far as to give him more warning than was even warranted, having stated plain as day that he did not care for the fate of anything except Chugoku and the Mouri Clan. 

Strange as the idea was, had he actually come to trust Motonari in spite of this? Had he thought himself an exception?

As nonsensically as Tokugawa stood before him, outraged at his callousness, Otani somehow had faith that Motonari would carry out the punishment he could no longer inflict on Tokugawa himself.

He who should have known better had acted against his own best interests because of something as uncertain as _trust._

“I thought you were _friends?!_ ”

Motonari did not recoil at Tokugawa’s accusation as he might once have in years past, just as Otani's talk of _eternal friendship_ left him doing little more than rolling his eyes (so long as Ishida was not looking in his general direction). In earlier times, the thought alone would have made his skin crawl and set his temper aflame; but he was older now, wiser. More capable of fielding such a naive question.

He told him yes.

(Perhaps they were, by a certain definition. 

Not Tokugawa’s, evidently.)

But it didn’t matter to him, was the thing.

There was no “bond” tying them together. And if there had been, Motonari had destroyed it as easily as he breathed. 

Motonari cut down Tokugawa without much fanfare. The "Light of the East" was not a true sun in the slightest; just a man who took on a mantle far too heavy and unsuited for his mortal shoulders, destined to be extinguished. Motonari felt it was fitting that he should be the one to do it.

As Tokugawa's blood ran, the clouds then parted and the resplendent sun shone just for Motonari.

From behind him, Otani began to speak, an unearthly aura overtaking his body, his eyes glowing red. A "monster", he called Motonari. 

He had been called far worse. He had _done_ far worse than betray a dying man.

The shadows of a curse gathered and melded together, coalescing around Otani's hands. Motonari's figure was unmoving as the darkness blasted into his body, cold like the grave; Otani’s final act as a member of the living.

And moments later, this curse that stole the last whispers of Otani's strength was undone, his effort rendered meaningless. It was cleansed from Motonari's body by the divine light the sun bestowed upon its faithful child.

Peace for Chugoku, glory to the Mouri Clan --

The sun alone filling the hollows of Motonari’s heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback is most welcome. I've never been entirely sure how to interpret Motonari and Gyoubu's interactions, but I gave it my best shot here.


End file.
